EQUITABLE COAL CO LTD Vs. AMRITA NATH MITTER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant who appeals is the landlord of the plaintiff. The latter, it is not disputed, has a house and compound surrounded by a pucca wall in Mauza Makatpur in Giridih Municipality as a tenant of the defendant, the Equitable Coal Co. This bungalow and compound bear survey plot No. 45. Outside the wall on the west is an irregular triangle of land plotted in survey Nos. 42,43 and 44 and beyond these plots is a nala or municipal drain running approximately north to south and bearing plot No. 41.

(2.) The dispute between the parties, put in the briefest terms, is whether the lease granted by the defendant company to the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiff included or excluded these three plots, and whether by the successive transfers of the leasehold property through which the title has devolved on the plaintiff, the latter has acquired a title to these plots, in addition to plot No. 45 as claimed by the plaintiff or to plot No. 45 only as is the case of the defendant. The Munsif in a considered judgment was of opinion that the property to which the plaintiff was entitled did not include the land in suit. There was, h& thought, discrepancies between the area and boundaries, but the grant did not extend right up to the western boundary mentioned in the document of lease.

(3.) The Subordinate Judge who heard an appeal from this decision came to a different view. He considered that the central point in the case was as to the position of the nala referred to as the western boundary, and he found that this nala was at the time of the grant in the same position as at present. He says: Where the area goes against the boundaries the boundaries should prevail," and on this view he has allowed the appeal and decreed the suit.